


The Settling Snow

by Liara_90



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gen, One Shot, POV Third Person, Post-Volume 4 (RWBY), Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 12:44:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12888144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: In the aftermath of his second daughter's escape, Jacques Schnee invites General Ironwood to discuss develops in Mistral. The General, accompanied by Specialist Winter Schnee, travels to Jacques' private retreat to put an end to their schisms.This is the tale of that night.





	The Settling Snow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mantisbelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mantisbelle/gifts).



“If I was about thirty years younger, and as reckless as I was then…” mused Ironwood aloud, peering out the window of his airship. “I would have _loved_ to going skiing down those mountains.”

Winter Schnee raised an eyebrow from her adjacent seat in the shuttle, eyes not drifting from the Scroll her fingers were flying over. Some accounting spreadsheet the General had never developed a taste for parsing. “There used to be a ski resort,” she said, a loose bobble of hair bouncing with the turbulence. “An airship would take you up to the summit, and you’d spend the whole day getting down.” Winter paused, eyes unfocusing as she searched her memory. “ _Nidhogg_ , that’s what it was called.”

Ironwood blinked. “That’s the same Nidhogg that was-”

“-Yes. Sir.”

“ _Ah_.” Ironwood leaned back in his seat, the view from his porthole suddenly somewhat less appealing.

_Drakensmunn_ was the formal name for this region of Atlas, this pristine expanse of jagged mountains and crystalline lakes. Like most Atlesians, though, Ironwood had learned about it from storybooks, where it had been the distant land from which all manner of monsters and sorceresses had hailed from. He couldn’t help but remember those stories, as they soared above the mountaintops, nor could he fault the creative embellishments the land had evoked. The oldest of those stories, the ones read aloud to him by candlelight in those unending winters beyond the walls - said that these weren’t even mountains they were flying over now. _No, little Jimmy, those are the dragon’s teeth. A petrified jaw turned into a ring of mountains, waiting for the call to reawaken_. That had given Drakensumnn the name by which it was always known by, official cartography be damned:

_The Dragon’s Mouth_.

And he was flying right into the middle of it.

“ _ETA five minutes_ ,” the pilot barked over the intercom. “ _Local time is 1812 hours, set your Scrolls.”_

Winter ignored the safety recommendations and unfastened her harness, grabbing the looped straps on the bulkhead’s ceiling to steady herself.

“Schnee?”

“Just going to check in with our pilot, sir,” Winter said. The airship lurched slightly, but her footing held true. “I will say, though, the view on approach truly _is_ breathtaking.”

Ironwood raised an eyebrow but unbuckled his straps in turn, following his Specialist to the cockpit. The pilot looked vaguely off-put at having her two passengers suddenly crammed into the front of the ship, but she couldn’t blame them.

The landscape before them truly was otherworldly. And that was the only adjective that would do.

Their destination was square in the middle of the Dragon’s Mouth, fencing them in with ice-capped mountains that dwarfed anything in Anima. Within that deep and expansive valley sat a lake, created by glacial melt in the bygone summer months. Come the winter of the present, though, the lake was frozen solid, creating a vast plain of ice that seemed to stretch out to the horizon.

And right in the middle of that frozen lake, in the middle of the ring of mountains, there stood a house, suspended above the throat of the dragon.

“I will say this,” Ironwood breathed, a hand resting on the pilot’s seat, “your father has an eye for the imposing.”

Winter said nothing, but her silence spoke for her.

“Um, hang on, sir,” requested the pilot, still a little fazed by the presence of a VIP in her cabin. Her fingers flew across the console. “Schloss-Approach this is Atlas-One-Niner-Five, approaching at vector two-one. Requesting final clearance to land.”

There was a long silence on the radio. Their airship bobbed slightly as it continued its swoop, many miles of ice vanishing behind them.

“ _Copy, Atlas-One-Niner-Five_ ,” a voice finally answered through the radio, masculine and static-choked. “ _Request you use landing pad two-repeat-two. It’s at the southern edge of the complex, you’ll see it on approach.”_

Their pilot flipped the switch. “Acknowledged, Schloss-Approach, landing pad two.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” the voice crackled back. “ _And please extends Mister Schnee’s warm welcome to your passengers.”_

The pilot tilted her head up at that, catching an amused glint in the General’s eye. “Roger, will do. One-Niner-Five out.” She flicked the switch again, closing the channel with a _snap_. Black-gloved fingers strummed the yoke of her airship. “I’ve flown to a lot of mansions in my day, sir, never one with its own traffic control.”

Ironwood offered her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “We’ll get out of your hair, lieutenant. Specialist, a word?”

Winter followed her CO out of the cabin, no doubt to the relief of the pilot. She felt the plane dip again, adjusting altitude. The winds around Drakensmunn were never easy to navigate in the best of conditions, and the Atlesian military airship hadn’t been built with passenger comfort as its top priority.

“How long has it been, Winter?” Ironwood asked, his gaze drifting back to the porthole by his seat.

Winter tensed, however slightly. “Eighteen, twenty years, sir. Thereabouts. Mother never liked coming out here.”

Ironwood stared down at the frozen lake beneath him, its surface seeming even darker in the pale light of sunset. “Can’t say I blame her.”

“This is my fath- … this is _Jacques Schnee’s_ private retreat,” Winter said, speaking as soft as one could in an airship. “He does not _entertain_ here, sir.”

Ironwood nodded but said nothing, pondering those words for the duration of their descent.

The airship touched down a few seconds later, its engine thrusters kicking up a curtain of virgin snow around them. “ _We are down_ ,” confirmed the pilot over the intercom, as the interior lights flickered to life. “ _Temperature outside reads fifteen below freezing, watch your extremities._ ”

Winter smiled a little grimly at the warning.

The ramp at the rear of the airship dropped down, two debugged and re-programmed Atlesian Knights trotting out mechanically to stand sentinel. Winter took point, as was her prerogative, her fur collar offering little comfort against the howling winds off the icy lake. One hand, gloved in black leather, fell unthinkingly to the hilt of her blade, its presence a reassuring weight at her hip. Ironwood followed a few steps behind her, his heavy booted feet seeming to land with a _thump_ on each step down the rampart; his gaze as stony as the mountains around them.

No one was there to greet them, so the two began their trek to the house alone, Winter listening to the sound of the ramp _whirring_ shut behind them. The pilot had instructions to keep the engines spinning, an order she’d been all-too-happy to obey, for the heat if nothing else.

Winter had always thought of this place as a _house_ , though seeing it through adult eyes there was no denying that it was a _castle_. There had been no island here when Jacques Schnee had acquired the rights to the waters, _no_ , he had simply had Earth Dust flown in, dumped from airborne tankers until his retreat was large enough. Unlike the mansion in which she had been raised, _this_ was a residence Jacques could design from scratch, unshackled and untethered from social and architectural norms.

Winter almost missed a step as it _clicked_ in her brain, a connection her juvenile synapses had never been able to make. _Schwarzeschloß_ \- the Black Castle - the mythical keep of the Archmage of Mantle. The Black Castle was a place from fairy tales, it had almost certainly never existed in historical Remnant. And yet there it stood before her, myth made real.

She heard Ironwood’s footsteps crunching the snow behind her. “No offense, Schnee, but it’s rather ugly.”

Winter forced herself to smile at that, tugging one cheek up, though the jest didn’t reach her heart. It _was_ ugly, from a matter of conventional aesthetics, black stones and slits for windows. So unlike the place she still thought of as _home_ , the mansion she and her sister had escaped from, where every detail was designed to convey the primacy of the Schnees atop the Atlesian pyramid. This was not. This had been built around sketches from fairy tales - of that Winter was now certain - those quilled & ink illustrations that predated the Great War.

It had none of the set dressing that concealed her father’s character. No wonder her mother had so hated it here.

The doors - thick wooden panels reinforced with iron bars - swung open on approach. A gust of wind sent snow across the threshold, a second before Ironwood entered.

Winter hung back for a moment, unable to resist one last glance across the lake. The sun - weak and pale at this latitude - was just dipping below the mountain range across the ice, rays of light streaking through the jagged teeth of the mountains. She could see snow squalls blowing across the lake like will-o'-wisps, spot the shattered moon floating overhead...

“ _Specialist_?”

Winter shook her head, doing her best to clear it. “Sorry, sir,” she apologized, crossing the threshold with a long and flowing stride. “Pilot left the external lights running. Waste of Dust.”

Ironwood shrug a little, flakes of snow falling from his shoulders as he did. “I’ll take it out of her paycheck,” he replied, glibly, both of them knowing that no such thing would ever be considered.

The doors swung shut behind them.

Two servants clad in black uniforms took their overcoats from them, though the way Winter’s hand hovered above her hilt made it clear that _that_ would not be surrendered. To their credit, they’d didn’t press for it. Winter didn’t recognize the staff - hardly surprising, given her years away - and they moved like shadows, eyes averted and mouths shut. Her Father’s preference, no doubt.

“Mister Ironwood, I am _so_ pleased that you could make it.” Winter’s head snapped up at that, at the voice of her father’s retainer. _Baum_ , a mononymous man whose legal talents were inversely proportional to his moral scruples. “And my _dear_ Winter. What an unexpected surprise. I haven’t seen you since you were a _little_ girl.”

That was a lie, plain and simple, a barb crafted to slip beneath her armor. She’d left home as a teenager, and run into Baum more than a few times since then. He was trying to unbalance her, she could tell at once, re-assert the dynamic where _he_ was the commanding adult and _she_ the obedient child.

“Mister Baum,” Winter greeted, inclining her head by degrees. “You’re looking well.” Her tone crisp as the winds outside.

“ _Bah_ ,” he waved a hand in her direction. “I’ve gotten fat,” he lamented with a chuckle, patting his ballooning belly. “But you’ve developed into a quite a beautiful lady,” he observed, eyes sweeping from her boots to her breasts.

Winter’s brow narrowed, possibilities running through her mind. A conversation with her father’s lawyer was a labyrinth and a minefield all in one. Did he think that she would be flattered by an old man’s compliments? Unsettled by his lustful glares? Angered by his overt ogling?

Ironwood didn’t give her a chance to finish. “Winter Schnee is here in her professional capacity as my _aide-de-camp_ ,” he clarified, tugging the leather gloves off his hands. “I would request you refer to her as _Specialist_ or _Miss Schnee_.”

Baum’s eyes darted between the two, before a small smile curled around his face. “ _But of course_ ,” he agreed, in that tone of voice adults used when indulging their children’s fantasies. He bowed theatrically in Winter’s direction. “I intended no disrespect, _Specialist_.”

“None taken, sir,” Winter assured him. “Though I must ask where Mr. Schnee is.”

Baum straightened from his bow. The little smile never left his face. “I’m afraid your father is running behind schedule, madam,” the lawyer said. “Mechanical difficulties at the aerodrome in Arnica. He shouldn’t be more than thirty minutes delayed.”

Ironwood let the disapproval be made clear on his face. He was not a man who appreciated having his time squandered. “How… _unfortunate_.”

Baum gave an exaggerated grimace. “Tragically so. I have, however, been instructed to put the manor’s comforts at your disposal. Would you kindly follow me.”

And with that he spun on his heel, leather moccasins padding along a stone-tiled floor. Ironwood shot Winter a shrug and followed the solicitor, rubbing his shoulder unthinkingly as he did.

Winter clasped her hands behind her back and followed suit, the heels of her boots seeming to echo in the cavernous corridors. She tried to reconcile the reality before her with the memories from her youth, but she simply couldn’t. Whatever childlike innocence she had first appreciated the manor with was inaccessible to the adult.

It was, she had to admit, _stunning_ , in its own grim way. The ceilings were arched, the furnishments sparse. She half-expected the damn place to be light by torchlight, but her father was not so rustic. Dust-powered lights were moulded discreetly into the masonry, though too few and far between to drive away the many shadows. And while she had expected a structure of stone to be frigid in winter, a Fire Dust furnace kept the keep on the edge of sweltering. _The Gelè clan were no Schnees, after all_ , Winter thought to herself.

“ _This is a beautiful building_ ,” Ironwood said from ahead, his voice carrying far too far. “When did Jacques build it?”

“Hm. It would have been shortly before your Specialist was born, if my memory serves,” answered Baum. “One of my first jobs from Mister Schnee was negotiating the transfer of the lake from the Crown to his family. I still had my own practise at the time, you understand, but…”

Baum lead them to a spacious room near the heart of the mansion, something that was somewhere between a chalet lodge and a medieval mead hall. A hundred men could’ve stood comfortable inside it, but there was seating for at most two dozen. A massive hearth in the center of the room catalyzed Fire Dust into a roaring open flame, a wave of _heat_ washing over them as the doors to the room were swung open. The fire neither smoked nor crackled - Fire Dust had no need for logs or kindling - though Winter couldn’t keep her eyes from the licking flames as she entered.

“Please, make yourselves comfortable,” Baum said with a bow. “I’ll return momentarily with some refreshments.”

The doors swung shut.

“...Charming fellow, isn’t he?” Ironwood mused, strolling in a lazy circuit around the grand room.

“My father’s loyal lapdog,” Winter confirmed, closing the distance between them. She wouldn’t put it past Baum to have someone eavesdropping on their conversation, though she didn’t much care anymore if he did.

She walked over to Ironwood, who was staring up at the mounted head of a Beowolf. A simulacrum of the real thing, of course, but an uncanny job nonetheless. Ironwood had stared down such a beast at Beacon mere months ago, and the detailing was exquisite.

“What’s this about the _mechanical difficulties_?” Ironwood asked, tilting his head to look at the underside of the Beowulf. “I’ve known Jacques for thirty years and he’s rather _anally_ punctual.” He smiled. “Please excuse me language, Specialist.”

Winter shook her head slightly, tempted to roll her eyes. “It’s fine, sir. And it could honestly be mechanical issues. Far be it for me to give my father the benefit of the doubt, but _nothing_ has been running smoothly since we lost the CCT.”

“Fair enough, Specialist.” His finger strokes the synthetic fur of the mounted Grimm.

“ _Or_ , yes, this could be another one of his petty power plays. Stroke his ego by making us wait.”

Ironwood’s hand fell back to his side. “You know that your father and I have not been on the best of terms lately,” he began, resuming his stroll.

“ _Lately_ , sir?” Winter asked, just a little wryly.

“Very droll, Specialist.” Ironwood rubbed his shoulder, the sweltering heat from the fire causing an itching in his prosthetics. “But needless to say that Jacques isn’t taking the Dust embargo well.”

“Would you like me to act surprised, sir?” There was a rare and playful glean to Winter’s eyes, making jokes at her father’s expense.

Ironwood shook his head. “What I’d _like_ is for Jacques to stop thinking about his lien for five damn minutes. We’re halfway to solving this crisis if he’d stop undermining me-”

The General caught himself mid-tirade, the doors to the hall opening with a loud _groan_. Two of the waitstaff entered - a man in a dark suit and a woman in a dress and jacket - the former carrying a tall wine bottle wrapped in a white towel.

“Mister Schnee sends his apologies for the delay,” the man said, his voice a gravelly baritone. “Though we have received word that the maintenance has been completed, and he will be taking off from the Arnica Aerodrome momentarily.”

Ironwood suppressed a growl. That meant another thirty minutes, at least.

“In apology,” continued the woman, seamlessly, “he has sent up a bottle from Château Gelè.”

One of Winter’s eyebrows raised as she watched the waitstaff approach a nearby table, setting down crystalline glasses with needle-thin stems. Château Gelè was the vineyard of her father’s family, a mid-sized, mid-quality estate that had been their only claim to fame before Jacques had wedded Willow. Despite owning it outright her father was rather loathe to promote the label, no doubt seeing it as an unwelcome reminder of the family he’d married _out_ of.

“Will _sir_ drink?” asked the butler, proffering the bottle.

Ironwood rolled his neck. “ _Fine_.” He wouldn’t mind something to take off the edge of his annoyance, and it wasn’t like a glass was going to get him sloshed.

“And the _miss_?”

“I’m fine,” Winter replied, flashing a palm.

“Making me drink alone?” Ironwood asked, with a small and teasing grin. He lowered himself onto a plush leather couch, watching the servants scurry about.

Winter shook her head in resignation. “ _One_ glass,” she said with a sigh, taking a seat opposite the General.

“You can be my poison tester. Make sure Jacques isn’t trying to pull a fast one on me.” Ironwood glanced up at the servants, looking for a sympathetic smile or an embarrassed blush, but their faces were as impassive as stone. “Tough crowd.”

To her credit as a Specialist, Winter _did_ watch as the bottle was opened. A corkscrew was plunged through a wax seal the color of dried blood, two glasses filled deftly to the midpoint. The servants set the bottle down and excused themselves with matching bows, leaving the guests alone.

“Smell anything toxic?” Ironwood asked, as Winter sniffed the bouquet.

“It’s middling at best,” Winter reviewed, taking the smallest of sips, letting the red liquid linger on her tongue. Many poisons didn’t leave a taste, of course, but she tested anyways. “ _Far_ too bitter, but that’s Gelè family soil for you.”

Ironwood smiled slightly at the double-entendre in Winter’s words. “So I’m safe,” he surmised, taking his own, deeper sip. He exchanged his glass for the bottle, eyes squinting to read the fine print of the label. “This is almost as old as you are,” he noted with a chuckle, handing her the bottle by its neck.

Winter grasped the bottle in her palm, bringing it close. “First Year of Opal,” she confirmed. “ _Exactly_ as old as me.”

“That’s a nice little touch,” Ironwood said, assuming the selection had been intentional.

Winter continued staring at the bottle, though she’d moved passed the label’s text. Ironwood’s joke about poisoning had raised hairs on the back of her neck, and Specialists didn’t survive by ignoring their instincts. But the bottle was authentic, even under scrutiny. The printed label had faded appropriately with the decades, the wax around the neck showed no signs of being tampered with.

She set the bottle down. _The only danger was from the taste_.

She reclined in a chair, taking another sip, feeling her heart beating in her chest. How little imagination it had taken to believe that her _father_ would try to poison them...

_What was Remnant coming to?_

Winter got to her feet, glass in hand, resuming her patrol of the room. The Dust Fire went on burning without interruption behind her. In a few strides she found herself standing before narrow glass windows, facing south, with a commanding view of the lake. Her own reflection dominated the view until her nose was practically pressed against the glass, eyes squinting to try to make out something - _anything_ \- in the darkness.

_Wait…_

“…Our airship’s exterior lights are off.”

Ironwood glanced over his shoulder to face Winter. “Weren’t you complaining that they _weren’t_?”

“Not with _that_ pilot,” Winter muttered, trying to pluck her Scroll from her coat with her free hand. She flipped it open and thumbed in her passcode, only for the Scroll to _flash_ a rejection code. She shook her head, the nerves no doubt causing her thumb to slip. She focused on the holographic keypad... 

...and watched the digits blur before her eyes.

_crash_

Ironwood was on his feet, the sound of a shattering wine glass propelling him upright. “Winter?”

“ _The wine_ ,” she shouted, as the red pooled at her feet. She extended her arm and flashed her hand upright, looking for all the world like she was checking her manicure. Ironwood knew that she wasn’t. She was doing a field test for blurred vision.

The door was thrown open, causing Winter and Ironwood to spin to face it. Baum himself crossed the threshold, accompanied by two men dressed as servants.

“ _Baum_ , what on Remnant is the meaning of this?” Ironwood demanded, his hand drifting to the beastly revolver at his hip.

Baum’s mouth opened, though Winter didn’t catch what he said. Because she had just dropped to one knee and shoved two fingers down her throat.

The reaction was pretty instantaneous, bile spewing up from her stomach, burning her throat, splashing the floor. Inducing vomiting was far more hazardous than most fiction suggested, but she could heal her oesophagus with a flare of her Aura, and she couldn’t afford to metabolize any more of what was in the wine. _Not now_. Winter choked and forced herself to repeat the motion, violently emptying the contents of her stomach. The whole exercise took a matter of seconds, but when she righted herself Ironwood’s pistol was drawn, and pointed at Baum. The two servants were shielding him with their bodies, their stances betraying soldierly schooling.

“ _Poison_ … _you_ coward!” Winter spat, acidly.

Baum seemed to recoil at that more than the General’s sidearm. He placed a hand on the servant’s arm, stepping forward. More of the ‘servants’ began filling into the room with each step Baum took, their expressions frozen, their eyes murderous.

“Do you remember the tale, Winter, from when you were a little girl…” The rhythm of Baum’s words was convivial, his tone as cold as ice. “Of the Fair Lady Conium? _Surely_ you must. We told you it so many, many times...” Winter’s eyes narrowed as he took a few more steps towards them. Ironwood’s pistol wavered between targets, too many to properly prioritize.

“You remember,” Baum continued, “the Lady Conium was from a noble house, with a long an honorable lineage, dutiful servants to the Kings of Mantle. But once upon a time... she committed a _sin_ ; she betrayed her family, her _blood_.”

_Keep talking_.

Winter was of half a mind to just skewer the bastard then and there. She probably could - it was not like he had any Aura to speak of. But her head was still swimming. Her subconscious was racing at a mile a minute, running scenario after scenario through her mind, trying to find the one where they _won_...

“But the Lady Conium was still an honorable woman, you know. She made a mistake, a _horrible_ one, one that she could never be forgiven for. Not in this life, at least.” Baum came to a rest but a few strides from Winter, while his army of so-called servants continued filling in behind him. There must have been twenty, _thirty_ of the assassins - Winter struggled to tally them all.

“So she did the only thing left for an honorable woman to do,” Baum narrated, the rising pitch of his tone suggesting the conclusion was near. “She had a very fine meal, asked her servants to bring her a bottle from the cellar… and she gulped her poison down.”

“Baum this is _madness_ ,” Ironwood spat, backing up slowly so as to abut Winter. “Does Jacques think he can get away with _assassinating_ a Councilor of Atlas?”

“Not on his own, no,” Baum conceded with a shrug. He began a leisurely retreat, keeping his eyes locked with Winter. “But with the help of certain disaffected elements in Mistral… well…that’s a different question entirely.”

“He’ll die for this,” Winter promised, her words literally laced with venom.

“Not by your hand, daughter dearest,” Baum replied with a cruel grin. He turned his back, making his way towards the throng of assassins. “Though please remember that we _did_ try to make this painless for you.”

The blade of Winter’s sword inched out of its hilt. “ _Should have tried harder, Baum._ ”

Baum’s foot slipped on a step. “What was th-”

In fights, Winter would channel her Semblance to create _Glyphs_ , circular platforms reflecting the snowflake insignia of her bloodline. When she was running, Winter would create two or three, giving herself platforms to traverse any terrain. Against an adversary she could create six or eight glyphs clustered close together, using the angled platforms to perform sequential attacks that all-but-eviscerated her enemies.

In that moment, in that split-second before Baum caught his balance, Winter brought eighty glyphs to life at once, until the hall was shimmering with the light of her Semblance.

She was gone before any could understand what she was doing, ricocheting around the room at impossible angles and ungodly speed. The assassins shouted, dispersing as they readied swords and guns, but Winter drew blood first. Her saber pierced Aura and arteries, sending the first of the assassins spilling to the ground.

After that, things _really_ got chaotic.

The sound of bullets humming through the air filled her ears, even as she seemed to soar through the room, pushing off one Glyph to the next faster than the eye could track. She felt some of the rounds tearing at the edges of her Aura, but the damage was minimal, the small calibre of concealable guns. Somewhere _behind_ her the General was firing his revolver, its thunderous _boom_ echoing in her eardrums as he felled one man after another.

Winter jumped off her Glyph to carve through another assassin. Something nicked her shin in exchange. She cursed and leapt away.

_Fuck_.

The good news was that the Mistralis seemed to be soldiers, not Huntsmen. Hardly the thugs off the street Winter could’ve batted aside without batting an eye, but they were no Vytal Champions, either.

Her sword cut through one man’s thigh and another’s elbow in one smooth and sanguine sweep, Fire Dust now lacing her blade. A lifetime of training flowed through her muscles, allowing the Specialist to act on reflex, trusting nerves that could move far faster than her mind.

She leapt to one Glyph, then another, then-

- _crack_

A hand-cannon pegged her in the middle of a jump, like a skeet shooter hitting a clay disk. Winter spun and _slammed_ into her own Glyph, bouncing off it even as it faded to non-existence.

_All_ her Glyphs vanished.

Winter landed on the hardwood floor with a _thud_ that splintered panels, rolling onto her side as her Aura absorbed round after round. With a last bit of _push_ Winter threw herself behind a table, a thick slab of wood the General had overturned as soon as the shooting had started.

" _You're hurt_ ," they said in stereo.

Ironwood's wounds looked the worse. His Aura was powerful, befitting the Huntsmen that he was, but it had always been fickle when it came to protecting his prosthetics. One of his arms had been reduced to a slag of steel junk, dangling limp from its socket. He paused for a moment to reload his pistol, pushing precious Dust cartridges into its oversized chambers.

"Well… _thisss_ could have gone better," Ironwood said, his _s_ slurring slightly. Whatever poison was in Winter's system was having a much tougher time with the General. The fact that most of his digestive track was cybernetic probably had something to do with it. He leaned around the table and squeezed off a shot, the Lighting round sending the nearest assassins scrambling for cover. "I don't like our position. Northwest exit at your _ten_ leads to a hallway. I say we break for it.”

Winter wordlessly agreed, liking their chances in the narrow corridors far better than the wide-open hearth room. " _We need backup_ ," she added, yelling over the sounds of gunfire. "I need your comm piece!"

Ironwood nodded, wincing as a splinter of the table exploded by his ear. He reached into his jacket and plucked out a small earpiece, tossing it in an arc towards his Specialist. Winter caught it with her hand and thumbed it _on_ , the transmitter burning through a small battery of Lightning Dust to boost its signal.

It was _just_ strong enough to reach an unmanned relay station on the edge of the Dragon’s Mouth. But that was as strong as it needed to be.

* * *

On the other side of Atlas, a desk officer's job was about to get a _lot_ more interesting.

"MISCOM this is Specialist Atlas Schnee, auth code Delta-Gamma-Epsilon, I have Atlas-Actual and we need _immediate support_."

The man on the other end of the radio line was a thirty-three year communications control officer who usually made no decision more important than what he was having for lunch. And now - all of a sudden and entirely without warning - a radio channel that was _never_ used was saying things which should _never_ be said.

"Uh, Specialist, this is MISCOM, repeat your last." The officer was scrambling to open up the right windows on his screen, stubby fingers hurrying to verify authentication codes.

He could _definitely_ hear a shitstorm on the other end of the line. "MISCOM I have General Ironwood and we are under attack at the Dragon’s Mouth." Static filled the line for a second, and when it went away, the woman on the other end was panting. "Jacques Schnee has allied with Mistral and assume state of war."

The officer finally finished typing in _DELTA-GAMMA-EPSILON_ , swallowing as the day-specific Specialist credentials were confirmed in the system. "Uhh… credentials authenticated, Specialist. What can we do for you?" With that kind of clearance, what _couldn’t_ they do was a harder question.

The sound of a small explosion filled his earpiece.

"MISCOM you are ordered to dispatch HT-1 to the following coordinates: Seven-Eight-dot-One-Four-dot-Four-Niner _North_ , One-Five-dot-Too-Seven-dot-Fife-Six _East_. _Confirm_.”

“Acknowledged, Specialist. Coordinates are for Drakensmunn Lake.”

The line was choked with shouts for several seconds. “ _Confirmed_. Authorize danger-close approach.”

“Uh, be advised-”

“ _Do it_!”

The officer exhaled heavily, and executed the command code.

* * *

Several miles away, at an airstrip the government of Atlas would have refused to acknowledge existed, a Team of Huntsmen were sprinting towards their aircraft. Decades ago they’d been known as Team SHDE, before they had shed the colorful nomenclature of their youths in favor of a dry unit code befitting military service. Very few Huntsmen teams remained intact for as long as they had, but those that did punched _far_ above their weight.

Each Huntsmen jumped into an aircraft, prototypes developed by Atlas Skunkworks that had never been so much as photographed by a civilian. Calling them _aircraft_ was something of a misnomer, though. Each jet was equipped with an external fuel tank loaded with close to forty-five cubic meters of chemically-pure Gravity Dust.

They weren’t really jets. They were missiles that happened to have passengers.

The four rockets took off within two seconds of one another. It would have been more efficient to fly at a higher altitude, where the air was thinner, but the missiles hugged close to Remnant, where the bond between earth and Dust was stronger. The Huntsmen would need to use their Auras constantly just to keep the _g_ forces from literally flattening them.

The missiles broke the sound barrier in less than a minute. They doubled their speed twenty seconds after that. Then they doubled it again.

From halfway across Solitas, the Huntsmen soared like valkyrie to the beacon of Winter Schnee. Thunder boomed in the arctic sky as they cast blurry streaks across the continent.

* * *

“ _Fuck!_ ”

Ironwood let out a curse as something sliced into his cheek, a fresh crimson line now seeping blood, sending him sprawling. Every part of him that was still human was screaming from exhaustion, a dozen cuts and bruises sapping his strength with each second. He shook his head and forced himself to breathe, to _focus_ , channeling his willpower into bolstering his Aura’s shield.

It wasn’t going to be enough. Not for much longer. But _until_ that moment came-

-Ironwood let out a primal yell and hoisted himself upright, a rifle he’d lifted from a dead man clutched in his one working arm. He gritted his teeth as he squeezed the trigger, crudely spraying bullets as he propped the gun’s stock against his shoulder-

-The gun _clicked_ empty, and he slipped back behind a stony column.

“You get the word out?” Ironwood shouted, glancing at the protege of his crouched in cover across the hallway.

“Yes, sir!” Winter shouted back, adjusting the grip on her swords, having split her blade into a pair. Their escape to the Schloss’ hallway had bought them a few second’s reprieve, but it hadn’t lasted. The castle’s narrow corridors were soon choked with killers.

“ETA?” Something exploded near his head, forcing him to crouch lower still.

“Too damn long.” Winter spun the cylinders on her sabers, empty Dust cartridges cycled out for filled ones. She poked her head out, surveying the battlefield. Their would-be assassins had grown far more conservative since Winter and Ironwood had decimated their numbers, taking idle potshots while they re-grouped and re-strategized. No doubt they were perturbed by their _coup de grâce_ turning into a bloodbath.

Winter’s head lolled for a second. Ironwood’s eyes widened as he saw her catch herself, the staggering half-step of a man on the edge of slumber. “ _Winter_.”

“I’m fine, sir,” she said, forcing herself to sound forceful. “I just need to buy us some time.”

“And how do you propose…” he trailed off, one of the servomotors in his ruined arm spasming.

Winter actually smiled at that. The kind of smile she always gave before she beat a cocky sparring partner into the ground. “Remember what you said about the best defense…”

“Schnee, _wait_!”

But before his lips were parted his Specialist was off again, running towards the nearest clump of Mistrali commandos on the other end of the corridor. Ironwood heard one of the men opposite him actually shout in startled surprise, before Winter’s blood-soaked blade slid between ribs.

He found another gun and kept firing.

* * *

The village of Eriophorum was a small farming community of a little over two hundred souls, located in the rugged interior of the Kingdom of Atlas. The weather was cold and the soil poor, but its inhabitants had eked out a living for generations, keeping the Grimm at bay through peaceful coexistence and a small but spirited militia. Fishing boats and dairies provided sustenance enough, traded for Dust and other luxuries whenever a merchant airship made its monthly pass. The fall of Beacon and the CCT network had affected their lives not a bit, apart from an added prayer before meals.

On that particular night, a young girl, aged twelve, sat on her bed in her room above the barn, staring out her window at the cloudless skies beyond. Out of the corner of her vision, the young girl caught a glimmer of motion, specks of something that shouldn’t have been. She scarcely had time to blink before they were gone again.

She rubbed her eyes, and returned to her book of fables.

The Huntsmen, strapped as they were into the rockets above, had no idea that that girl was the only soul who would see them on approach. They’d appeared over her western horizon and vanished into the east, taking less than two seconds to cross the sky.

* * *

Winter paused, and a sawed-off shotgun was unloaded into her stomach.

She let out a jagged scream and hurled her saber at the shooter, the blade piercing clean through his jugular. She stammered to the side, one hand clutching her naval. Her Aura had stopped the shell... 

_she pulled her hand away, finding it gloved in blood_

...but not all of it.

Someone was shouting her name, distantly. She didn’t have time to acknowledge it. Three more commandos had just rounded the corner to her left.

Winter reverted without effort to her earlier fighting style, one blade in lieu of two, her saber singing a dirge. The first man fell before he could fire his gun, the second missed wildly. The third man _hit_ , a second before she skewered him, a blindly-fired bullet tearing through her thigh.

There was an explosion behind her, and Winter toppled to the ground, a tendon severed. For just a moment she dared to hope that the cavalry had arrived, but the Mistrali accents shouting orders dashed those hopes without mercy. A badly-thrown grenade, leaving a hole in the floor.

_Her father would no doubt be furious._

Winter pressed herself against the wall of an alcove, forcing herself to stand upright, slimming her silhouette. She spun the cylinder on her saber, hoping to find a cartridge that still held Dust, knowing that none of them did. She felt her heart sink. At the very least, she’d hoped to be able to take them out with her, to burn Schwarzeschloß to the ground and everyone in it.

On the edge of her vision - blurry though it was - she saw her General, crouched in a nearby study, fumbling to swap out the magazine of a rifle with his one functioning arm. He glanced over at her, caught her eye.

‘ _Suicide, Schnee? You can do better than that.’_

Winter heard his voice in her head. It didn’t matter if he’d said it or not.

One of the Mistrali assassins passed her spot in the alcove, straying too close in his zest for an angle. The absolute tip of her blade nicked his neck, before the sword slipped from her hand. Those enemies still living spotted her.

She reacted before anyone could think, _pushing_ off with her good leg, sailing down the hallway in the hopes of rounding a corner before any man could fire. It was a fool’s hope, she knew, as she slipped on the blood of a slain Mistrali. She slammed into a bookshelf at the end of the corridor, finding herself at the intersection of two hallways filled with killers. Something about the collision - Winter’s Aura-enhanced force or the bullets that followed her - caused the shelf’s legs to crack and splinter, the grand oak carving toppling down onto her.

She felt the last of her Aura shatter, the hundred wounds her soul had been keeping at bay now exacting their fleshen toll.The sound of bullets seemed strangely muted as Winter’s head rung and throbbed. She felt the reverberations of the impacts along her back, the commandos trying to disintegrate her cover with gunfire.

‘ _You will be called upon to make a great many sacrifices_.’

And then she heard Ironwood’s voice clearly - _impossibly_ clearly - as if he was standing right beside her.

‘ _To make offerings of your time, your sweat, and your blood, to the service of the Kingdom of Atlas.’_

Because he was. Or had been. At their commencement address, shortly before she’d attained the rank of Specialist.

‘ _Your fellow countrymen will never comprehend the losses you will suffer on their behalf, the burdens you shoulder because they cannot.’_

She’d been top of her class - top of _every_ class - and thus privileged with a spot on the stage, not ten paces from the Headmaster’s podium.

‘ _But you will be their first and last line of defense, against enemies Grimm and Man alike.’_

It had been her Summoning that had won her that coveted position, a manifestation of the Schnee bloodline that was _far_ more powerful than the lien of their mines.

‘ _This is a life of sacrifice, of burden, of hardship. That you accept it - knowingly and willingly - reflects upon the nobility of your character, the wealth in your intentions.’_

Just one Summoning. All she needed was strength in her spirit for one last blow from her soul.

‘ _You have my solemn oath that I will do everything in my power to support your endeavours, and honor your sacrifices. Just as you have so sworn to me.’_

The Summoning ability of the Schnee bloodline gave Winter the power to call into service any foe she had slain herself. Her fingers twitched in an unthought habit, the movements serving as mnemonic to trigger that most powerful of Glyphs.

For the greatest foe Winter had slain was not a Boarbatusk or a Beringel. Not even the mighty Beowolf that she sometimes Summoned as a testament to her lethality. No, it was…

“... _a motherfucking_ Goliath!”

Winter heard the assassin shouting his realization as the beast appeared all around her, exploding the walls and ceiling with the sheer pressure of its body. There were some scattered shots - at least one of which hit Winter - before the astral Goliath swept the hall with its tusks, sending men soaring and screaming.

Bits of the rafters began falling down on Winter as the Goliath’s weight collapsed the very foundations of Schwarzeschloß. Shattering glass and scattered gunfire filled her ears. The edges of her vision were blackening, but she forced her eyes open.

_Not yet._ Not before her Goliath could finish its task.

The General was at her side, crouching over her. It was snowing, she could tell, flakes drifting down from where the ceiling had once been.

“Stay with me, Specialist!” he ordered. “Can’t have you leaving me alone to die.”

Winter heard the forced humor in his tone as he shuffled about her torso. A pistol the size of her forearm was set down delicately beside her. The Goliath had vanished from her vision, but its carnage remained clearly audible. “I’m fine, sir,” Winter said with a groan.

“Damn right,” Ironwood agreed. “You’re the best Specialist I’ve ever seen. You just sent a Mistrali death squad running for the hills, You’re not going to disappoint me by dying on me now...”

Winter forced herself to chuckle, even as more than saliva filled her mouth. “Not on my life,” she managed, wryly. “Huntsmen’ll be here any second.”

“They can stabilize you,” Ironwood assured her. ( _Stabilize?_ ) “How’s the pain?”

She coughed. “Actually, sir, don’t feel… don’t feel…” She glanced down and saw her leg, twisted at an impossible angle. “Oh, _shit_...”

Ironwood let out a wet laugh that morphed into a ragged cough. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you swear, Schnee. All it took was…”

Her gaze trailed down her thigh, her knee, her calf, her foot. The floor. The hallway, where Baum was-

Winter grabbed Ironwood by the lapels of his jacket, twisting them in a violent corkscrew with every ounce of strength left in her soul.

The _crack_ deafened her.

She collapsed, falling face-down atop Ironwood’s chest. Her hair - shook free from its strict bun - blanketed his head, his face. The pain was suddenly excruciating but she could not scream. ( _That was good. She would never want to be heard screaming._ )

Blood spilled from her torso, seeping into the cracks in the steel of James’ chest.

She felt Ironwood’s laboring lungs, her whole body rising and falling with his breaths. Felt it on her face, _on her cheeks_ , sour and warm. She heard Baum’s footfalls, coming closer, one shuffling step at a time, determined to fulfill his master’s orders. Felt James’ hand beneath her coat, by the side he’d set the pistol down.

_Felt Baum’s hand on her shoulder, cautiously peeling her off._

Ironwood’s wrist flicked up, a twitch of his finger sending a bullet through Baum’s brain.

_Heard her own breaths, weak and wet._

“That was a nice shot, sir,” she murmured, Baum’s corpse a shadow on the edge of her vision. 

There was a wine bottle lying next to it. Not the one from before, of course not, just something from the mansion knocked around in the chaos of the gunfight. But she solved the last mystery in that moment. How Baum had poisoned her without tampering with the bottle.

_Because you don’t need to tamper with_ anything _if the poison’s already in there. Just have one,_ special _bottle of Château Gelè set aside when your daughter is born._ Just _in case_

“Winter, you shouldn’t-”

She shook her head, however limp the gesture was. “ _No_.”

James closed his mouth. Through the veil of Winter’s hair, he saw four bright lights pop overhead, the guided rockets ejecting HT-1 with low-opening parachutes for landing. “Backup finally arrived,” he said, praying his words lifted Winter’s spirits.

She managed a smile. “Typical Huntsmen… just in time…to claim the credit...”

“ _Three minutes_ , Winter,” Ironwood pleaded.

“It was an honor, sir.”

His hand found hers, in a glove soaked wet with Schnee blood.

“Your service was _beyond_ exemplary, Specialist.” He was almost tripping over his words in his haste to get them out. “You did your Kingdom proud. Your _family_ proud. You… you…”

Four parachutes, dark as the night, burst open in the air above them, following the falling snowflakes.

“ _You_ , sir?”

“ _Yes_.” His voice broke. “Yes, Winter, you made me _so_ proud…”

Winter’s hand went limp, and her world went black.

Ironwood held her until the settling snow stopped melting on her skin.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in response to a prompt from [mantisbelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mantisbelle/pseuds/mantisbelle), who straight-up requested "' _Shot through the heart! A taking a bullet for B_ ' with platonic Winter and Ironwood?" from [my prompt list](http://pvoberstein.tumblr.com/post/167976338553/prompt-list-to-end-all-prompt-lists). (I sincerely hope you enjoyed what you sowed, but if something didn't work, I'd still very much like to know.)
> 
> So yeah. A bit (read: _significantly_ ) darker than my usual fare, but excellent practice. Your thoughts, feedback, compliments, and criticisms are always welcome. What worked, and what didn't. Just to get the ball rolling, I found the action not quite as tight visually as I'd have liked. And I have 0 ability to assess many of my other questions: Too cliché? Too chaotic? Too dark? Too abrupt? Dialogue okay? Villainy believable?
> 
> Those of you familiar with it may have noted that this fic borrows a few elements from The Dissonance Trilogy by The Last Sonata, particularly _[Vengeance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5441195)_ and _[Repentance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7668442)_. That series is one of my favorite fanfictions ever, and I tried to capture a bit of its tone herein. Baum is also appropriated somewhat from the [Mafia Blake AU](https://archiveofourown.org/series/97778) of [CourierNinetyTwo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourierNinetyTwo/pseuds/CourierNinetyTwo), though I'll be the first to admit that the characterization has slid somewhat.
> 
> As always, also feel fee to contact me on reddit at [u/pvoberstein](https://www.reddit.com/user/pvoberstein/) or Tumblr at [pvoberstein](http://www.pvoberstein.tumblr.com).


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